Definition of terrorism

[Sam]

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Most people have, not nesseraily here, have the perception of that terrorist is a muslim guy killing people for no apperent reason and just plain evil.

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I think people perception of a typical terrorist changes with what they see and experience, for example a couple of decades ago most British people would have told you that a terrorist is a Irish guy because of the trouble in Northern Ireland. So this current perception of the Muslim "Jihadist" is to be expected given the level of media coverage.

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But I will wnat to know first of all, is tehre any clear definition of terrorism? Because in some cases can that be relative. During the WWII was the Danish or Frensh rebells freedom fighters for there country and that's what most would see them. Which I also saw them like. But those or who sympathise for the Nazis and in particuallry the nazis themselves, the germans, saw them as terrorists.

The same thing can be said about in the Veitnam war about Viet Cong. Fro some where they freedom fighters for some simple rebells, which we today would see as terrorists.

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Again I think this point too is based on peoples perceptions as well as the clear cut defintion of a terrorist, it would all depend what your personal feeling on a certain point are. An intersting point to note is that the Viet Cong and French Freedom fighters where not considered terrorists (at least not in any material I have come across) they where malitia or paramilitary as there goal was not to terrorise but to achieve a valid aim i.e. the defense or recapture of their homeland from a foreign invader.

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In Iraq today those who fight the troops over there is concidered terrorists, however they don't nessesaraily have to do with the killings of cilivians which some rebell groups do over there. Which of course don't get much support from the public. So is those who fight the troops terrorists or just rebells? It ofte depend which side your ask and who yo ask.

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Terrorists are people who try to incite terror or fear in an enemy (usually among the civillian populace) so the majority of fighters in this theatre are paramilitary/rebels (admitedly a little misguided) as the vast majority take part in military style actions against soldiers rather than attacks on civillians.

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The 9/11 was a terrible act. Very terrible. That is classified as a terrorist act. Maybe that's is one of the real event that you can clearly say is a terrorism. They killed civlians wanted to create fear, which they casued, and perhaps that's is terrorism. Killing for no real reason or for very strange and far fetched reasons? To kill people for religious reasons is perhaps the only correct defintion of terrprism. Like the subway killings in japans so on.

Some tried to understand why this group did what they did during the 9/11. They appereantly didn't like america, maybe hate is a better word, but why did they do it. What was the motive? It was offically about religion and they wanted to punish america and the western world for som reason. However since Osama who from the beginning was a very intellegent man maybe had some kind of plan more then fear? I have hard to belive that he only intended to kill people and create fear. However his mind might have been deluded by religi8ous bullshit and perhaps thought it was rational to do. It's hard to know. Maybe he thought attacking an ecnomic target would make the economy unstable? Who knows?

Anyhow the act that american and many other western countries did after that was engaging Afghanistand and Iraq. As a war against terrorism, but also liberating the people. However the number of civilian causualties have never been so high as this war. We are talking % where most of those who have gotten killed (so far) is mostly civlians. Think the munber is like 80%. Is a milityary bombing of a city not as much terrorism as the 9/11 bombing. Or is the definition of terrorism also have to do with the motive or just killing civilians? Since the american troops has as ans objective to create fear in the cities by bombing them, isn't that the same thing as during 9/11?

What do you guys think?

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I think the primary thoughs behind large scale terrorist acts like 9/11, 7/11 and so on is a twisted form of publicity as well as destabilizing the target. The ammount of media coverage surrounding these incidents gave alot of air time to Al'Qaeda and Co. which could be said to have attracted others to their 'cause' as well as helipng to promote the fear they aim to incite on top of this there is also the fact that they caused monetary and human loss etc... as you mentioned.

The case of large scale bombing of cities at war time has been ongoing since the advent of modern military aviation, personally I do not find these acts to be of a terrorist nature; the aim is to eliminate enemy hot-spots and bases which in theatres like Iraq are interwoven within the fabric of city it is also important to remember that paramilitary forces usually live within the main population and cannot be distinguished as easily as regular army forces so historically these kinds of operation lead to higher civillian casulaties.

Sam